Drought conditions after sowing threaten the seedling establishment of all seeds, including cover crops. Cover crops are commonly broadcast and, thus, often susceptible to drought stress sowing. Our hypothesis was that seed coating with superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) would enhance germination in lab and stand field by increasing water availability single seeds. Red clover (Trifolium pratense L....

There is increasing interest among growers in novel establishment systems for cover crops that can rehabilitate and protect soil. Cropping intensification has led to yield declines, compacted and poor quality soil, and increased pest problems. Cover crops in the Brassica (mustard) family offer benefits in soil conservation, improvement in soil quality, reduction in nitrate leaching, and suppres...

Effect of seed ageing on stand establishment, growth and yield of three soybean varieties was studied. Treatments consisted of three varieties viz. Shohag, Bangladesh soybean 4 and BARIsoybean-5 with four levels of seed ageing viz. 20, 12, 8 and 2 months aged seed. Seed germination and field emergence percentage decreased but electrical conductivity of seed leachate increased with increasing se...

During the past decades, agro-biodiversity has markedly declined and some species are close to extinction in large parts of Europe. Reintroduction of rare arable plant species in suitable habitats could counteract this negative trend. The study investigates optimal sowing rates of three endangered species (Legousia speculum-veneris (L.) Chaix, Consolida regalis Gray, and Lithospermum arvense L....

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160136.].

Patterns of past fire disturbance may be an important contributor to contemporary vegetation composition and structure in old-growth forests of the southern Appalachian Mountains. However, due to a lack of information on pre-suppression fire regimes, vegetation pattern in the region has been primarily attributed to variability in soils and climate. To assess the pre-suppression fire regime’s ro...

Keywords: Forest understory herbs Lambda Land-use history Life table response experiment Population growth rate Prosartes lanuginosa a b s t r a c t Anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., logging) can strongly affect the composition and structure of forest understory herb communities, with land-use legacies often persisting for decades or even centuries. Many studies of forest plant response to land...